It is like the first 30 minutes of the debate, where Obama had to be called out on his repeated lies, is totally ignored. Obama tried not being polite at the start, he was smacked down utterly in a perfectly frank, sincere manner.

The day after the debate, Althouse suggested one reason why Obama didn't go for the 47% and other favorite anti-Romney memes, and I agree: Obama knew that Romney would be prepared for them, would have a good answer and a potentially powerful counterattack, and then those memes would be disabled for good.

Even now, as we can see, that's the game they're playing. Obama's "too nice" to point out Romney's "lies" during the actual debate (when he would have to back up that charge with actual arguments, and Romney would be able to defend himself in turn); but after the debate he and all his surrogates can go around just calling Romney a liar, liar, liar.

That suits them just fine; only problem is that the impression left by Romney's performance transcended their subsequent chanting of "lie." (Also the fact that, for all the big Romney lies they keep vaguely referring to, their big comeback after the debate is: Big Bird... sort of drains their credibility.) NB They did the same thing after Ryan's convention speech, arguably the best convention speech and Ryan's first big introduction to much of the country: all the MSM/Dem talk the next day was Ryan's "lies," a charge which was full of crap, a lie itself. But it kept them from talking about the content of Ryan's speech, or how good it/ he was.

This second debate is in some ways more amenable to a "less nice" Obama, because (if I understand correctly) the time for responses is more limited, they will be moving from one topic to another more quickly, there won't be as much back-and-forth. So Obama can more safely throw out anti-Romney attack lines, because Romney will have less opportunity to exhaustively rebut them.

On the other hand, it's a town hall, where it's more about connecting with and responding to citizens, and in that setting attacking the other guy might not come off too well.

. No wonder college kids voted for him... He gets his ass handed to him, in the nicest way possible, Romney was actually nice, after a year of all the shit Axelrod & Co have pulled on Romney.

Obama was immature, sour and repetitive and let's be honest no depth, just repeated all his talking points for the last few years....... And this is his big take away from the debate , he lost because he was too nice and the big liar , liar Romney wasn't nice...... Delusional or what.

What gets me is if Romney was so egregiously lying, why couldn't you prove it Wonder Boy, you know, how Romney demolished all your stupid stump speech talking points.

You have to convince people some else is lying .. You need , yo' know, facts to back you up.. Calling someone a liar , isn't going to cut it.

I've never, ever, ever wanted a politician to lose a election as badly has I want Obama to lose this election.

When the fooled are awakened and realize they mistook the serious business of stewardship (notice I did NOT say remaking) of the greatest country on earth for pop culture shallowness, then maybe we can get on with fixing real problems.

There is a famous line *attributed to PT Barnum (though not verified). Some of you know it applies to you.

Obama can talk tough in front of his supporters, but he knows he can't back up that talk when challenged in person. He might think he can get away with making nasty remarks in the next debate, but if Romney follows up, responds, and challenges him like he did in the last debate, then he'll just end up looking petulant and foolish.

edubutcher...I wonder if there are a few Blacks out there who finally figured out the Obama isn't really an "African-American"....someone who is primiraly (if not 100%) decended from Blacks who have been here since slavery. And lived through Jim Crow. And 60s riots. He is more of a Ward Churchill black.

A move from the beaches of Hawaii (and exclusive private schools) to Chicago isn't the same as a move Mississippi to Chicago.

You shake that invisible toothpick at me one more time I'm grabbing it and poking your eye out with it.

Know who's more interesting when Himself is talking? The little girl dancers with the big fat mean teacher that's who.

They were doing this very un-girly dance about the last text causing an accident. The little girl driver is holding the invisible steering wheel like two out of control pistons. It was very dramatic dance. Blew everybody away. But they missed a good chance to be even better. At impact the girls go tumbling away from the car seat as if thrown from a car. They're all wearing wide red ribbon belts but left them on. Had they removed their belts it would have looked like streams of blood, [ribbons of blood iirc my Obama/Ayers]. I saw that done on stage once and it really is dramatic, suddenly the stage is steaming red then everything is flat and pooled. Nobody clapped for the girls. Just silence. Then, whoa Horsie, did I just see that? Then applause. They won. Proving once again the mean fat lady teacher really does know her stuff.

I thought Obama was a ball busting Chicago style politics tyrant? You need to have a head on a swivel like Linda Blair to keep up with the contradictory shit on this blog. :

Garage, you don't watch enough gangster movies. Did Michael Corleone shoot anybody himself once he was don ? No. That's too messy. Obama has guys who are only too happy to do the dirty work for him, like you.

He hasn't gotten his hands dirty in years. He's forgotten how to do it. I don't think the next debate will be any better for him. He'll f**k it up if he tries to be tough.

The answer to that would have to be Romney benefits. If those percentages are accurate, then Obama has lost a significant amount of support among both groups. He's already losing white voters, so he needs higher margins with minorities for his coalition strategy to work.

edubutcher...I wonder if there are a few Blacks out there who finally figured out the Obama isn't really an "African-American"....someone who is primiraly (if not 100%) decended from Blacks who have been here since slavery. And lived through Jim Crow. And 60s riots. He is more of a Ward Churchill black.

A move from the beaches of Hawaii (and exclusive private schools) to Chicago isn't the same as a move Mississippi to Chicago.

You got it. Barry's more white than black. And many blacks just can't afford 4 more years of him.

David said...

according to SurveyUSA, Obama is winning 81% of black voters and 54% of hispanic voters in NV.

One in five black voters in Nevada will vote Romney?

Balderdash. Ain't gonna happen. Not in Nevada. Not anywhere. Just another crap poll.

Think about this: Gallup had the same figure for blacks 4 or 5 months ago.

phx, I envy you (and I'm not kidding or being ironic). There was time, when I was younger and relatively apolitical, that I faced election outcomes with equanimity. I had a mixture of cynicism (about politics) and faith (in the structural resilience of American values and institutions) that let me feel, no matter who won, life and the world (at least for me) would be more or less the same. What person or party happened to run Washington D.C. didn't matter that much to me.

Maybe someday, I'll feel that way again. But not this election.

Back then, I was a default lib/ Dem in many ways, and I had many of the usual prejudices against Republicans and conservatives. But my dad was a Carter supporter, then Reagan Democrat/ convert, then Republican-leaning independent businessman (and an immigrant who was more patriotic about America than most Americans, as many immigrants are). So for all my reflexive distaste for Republicans, I never thought they were unmitigated bad guys, and knew they might be right about some things on occasion. And I spent much of my childhood and adolescence under Reagan, after all.

Eventually I underwent a rightward political conversion (like my dad had, and like him identify as 'classical liberal' or 'libertarian'). I don't think I'll ever shift back. But I do look forward to future elections in which I might find the Democrat, along with the Republican, acceptable enough, or at least not so terrible as to feel dread. In which I might feel that the outcome of an election doesn't entail an irrevocable (and IMO ruinous) consequence. Though I might have strong feelings and preferences and concerns, still, I might someday feel relative equanimity and say: "may the best man win."

Maybe someday, I'll feel that way again. I wish. But not this election. (For one thing, because the media is so overwhelmingly, so ridiculously, so egregiously stacked in one candidate's favor and against the other, "may the best man win" seems like the naivest of mottoes. But I sincerely share that hope, and will say it with you: may the best man win.

Garage is actually correct here. Obama cannot be some sort of tough, Machiavellian, brilliant, conniving super-dirty trickster from the streets of Chicago and also a fumbling, bookish, boring, weak dolt who can't debate or manage his way out of a wet paper bag.

I am reminded of the way leftists would hilariously call Bush an idiot and a sinister overlord at the same time. Which is it? You have to choose.

What Obama is, quite obviously, is a tremendously narcissistic, sophisticated huckster who was able to build up an image that millions of people believed in a strange, cult-like way. Obama would make a great college football coach. What a recruiter he could have been! But he would need good people beneath him to actually plan and coach technique. I don't know if he could abide that.

I read this essay by Peter Suderman (http://reason.com/archives/2012/10/09/obamas-failed-narrative) last night, and it got me thinking: Does 0bama ever talk about anything but himself? No, seriously. He talks about his reactions to this or that. He talks about how he thinks he did in the first two years of his presidency, or the debate, or whatever. He does a lot of "Some people say/I say."

"I divide people into people who talk like us and people who don't talk like us," said David Brooks, speaking for all of them. "You could see him as a New Republic writer ... he's more talented than anyone in my lifetime ... he IS pretty dazzling when he walks into a room."

Dazzled indeed, they turned on their old flames, Bill and Hillary Clinton. They dumped John McCain, with whom they had flirted; and when Romney appeared -- rich, square, and looking like Dad in a mid-50s sitcom

Garage is actually correct here. Obama cannot be some sort of tough, Machiavellian, brilliant, conniving super-dirty trickster from the streets of Chicago and also a fumbling, bookish, boring, weak dolt who can't debate or manage his way out of a wet paper bag.

But 7M, if you look back at Obama's actual political history, at the ways in which he's won elections going way back to the beginning, it's *very* Chicago. (Neoneocon has been good at recounting some of this very dirty history.)

It's not that Obama himself has to be a Machiavellian genius. But his people, with his blessing-- the people running his campaigns (and now in large part his administration) are "Machiavellian" (though I don't like using that word because I respect Machiavelli as a political philosopher, "Alinskyite" is better but still imprecise and now hackneyed, "Chicago politics" will have to do as shorthand).

To be a mob boss, yes, you have to have a great deal of astuteness and the prudential/ pragmatic qualities extolled by Machiavelli. Because you have rivals for power on all sides at every moment.

But Obama had certain surface qualities that made him a perfect symbol, that lent him a symbolic power that far transcended his abilities as a politician. He beat the effing Clintons! He is manipulator of others, but he is also others' tool.

Witness the pathetic contortions, rationalizations, denials, fantasy alternate realities engaged in every day by the NYT. It's not Obama's genius carrying his water. When fucking Nixon-toppling Woodward is pointing to the emperor's nakedness, yet makes barely a ripple, that says something. Benghazigate and Fast & Furious and campaign donation corruption and IRS intimidation and etc. etc. etc.... it boggles the mind. If O was a Republican, he would have been impeached long ago.

I find Obama somewhat uncanny, myself. There's something about his face and demeanor that just *looks* totally innocent. He doesn't *look* like he's lying. His big puppy dog eyes and dazzling smile *look* totally benign, saintly. Yes, those of us who know what we're looking at can discern the arrogance and contempt and narcissism and insecuririty and disingenuousness and mendacity etc. But prima facie, Obama looks: "professorial."

Obama will make a fascinating future case study for historians. Far in the future.

The young upstart from an unusual background (Southern vs. half-black)

The taking the Democratic primaries by storm and beating the old guard, the I-will-undo-a-national-stain themes (our slavery and discrimination sin vs. Watergate)

The utter national and foreign policy failures of the presidencies

The failure by both men to understand how they could not continue to be loved when they did the best they could in tough times...

The list is long.

I agree that Obama's cult of personality is strange and scary but, Christ, people! (And that Christ is ironic; think about it.) Cults of personality have been around a long, long time. Living Colour did a a great song about it in 1985, you may recall.

Garage is actually correct here. Obama cannot be some sort of tough, Machiavellian, brilliant, conniving super-dirty trickster from the streets of Chicago and also a fumbling, bookish, boring, weak dolt who can't debate or manage his way out of a wet paper bag.

Good point. As I've said a few times, Zero is only tough with a gang at his back. Consider that cute little way he had of giving people the finger. He's basically a punk.

Put him eyeball to eyeball with somebody else that can't be stabbed in the back by Axelrod & Plouffe or isn't afraid of being called a racist for disagreeing with him to his face and Zero folds like a bad hand.

The "tough, Machiavellian, brilliant, conniving super-dirty trickster(s) from the streets of Chicago" are the ones who put him where he is. My guess is that describes Valerie Jarrett (or maybe Moochelle) more than him.

Sorry to say but that is not how it happened -- it took the media and the DNC and Chicago to prop him up against them. But for his skin color, they would have taken him on. What was the point of taking him on if that meant losing a large percentage of Dem voters, namely AAs. It would have been mutual destruction. They chose to battle another day.

Because The Bamster is (a) arrogant; (b) lazy; (c) has contempt for most of the world generally and Mitt Romney specifically; (d) has a record that he can't defend--he essentially rolled over and played dead --maybe in a boxer's protective coverup crouch--for most of the debate. The Lightworker would pout once in a while, but that's about as good as it got.

Nothing much is going to change at the next debate. He'll get another whupping--which he has coming. All that golfing is catching up with you Obozo.

David Brooks's total and utter seduction by Obama-- so embarrassingly blatant a seduction that Brooks himself conceded he was an "Obama sap"-- makes for a fascinating case study.

If I was more interested in David Brooks, meh. But it's still interesting for historical/ sociological/ psychological reasons. It's David Brooks and Noonan and Chris Buckley and others (including Althouse*) who contributed to and corroborated a certain 2008 consensus re Obama, even among ostensible Republicans-- a folie à plusieurs.

*I forgive and give Althouse more credit than the others, because she was a pretty good critic of Obama throughout the 2008 primaries and general election, and her reasoning for her Obama vote was a qualified one. It was largely about McCain (fair enough), but she also honestly conceded the important significance of the "First Black President" event for her. I strongly opposed Obama, but even I concede(d) the power of that.

Sorry to say but that is not how it happened -- it took the media and the DNC and Chicago to prop him up against them. But for his skin color, they would have taken him on. What was the point of taking him on if that meant losing a large percentage of Dem voters, namely AAs. It would have been mutual destruction. They chose to battle another day.

I agree with you, pm317, and that was my point. The reason Obama beat the Clintons wasn't due to any of Obama's intrinsic talents as a politician. It was something else at work.

And even now the Obama campaign would look awful if the media wasn't so willing to protect it, Libya incompetence leading to the death of a Ambaasdor and cover up would have ended a Republican incumbent.

... Now that Oama lost the debate on ecominic issues , jobs and Obamacare.... The media and dems will push "women issues". if they can convince Raddaz the Vp debate will be a women health channel program... abortion, contraceptives.. how Obamacare will make women's " lady parts " sing that's how great it will be for women....

The reason Obama beat the Clintons wasn't due to any of Obama's intrinsic talents as a politician. It was something else at work.

Agree. Having watched it all closely and knowing what I know about Hillary, she gracefully gave up (but only after making sure those of us who were all in for her understood the shenanigans of the media and the DNC) and supported and propped him in the end -- after all she is a prominent face of the Dem party than otherwise. She did believe at some level that Obama deserved the opportunity and might even do well. She showed magnanimity. She is not the monster she is made out to be on these boards.

yashu, Brooks and Noonan (Buckley I don't know enough about to say) and Althouse were ripe for the picking as regards the Obama religion. They were all three swept away, ravished by the coming of the Black Messiah. None of what I've written is in jest. Impossible to overestimate the importance, the centrality to America's bien pensants to find a magic Negro and then exalt him.

Even with the bloom off the rose look at Althouse' agony at the thought that she might abandon the Hope.

Bullshit, Ric. Althouse's title of her post supporting Obama was "How McCain Lost Me." Think through the obvious implications of that title.

The general thrust of Buckley's argument was that the Republicans had completely run out of energy and ideas, which was true, and corruption was beginning to set in. Let's see what this Big Promiser Has Got. The Republic will survive.

"But he would need good people beneath him to actually plan and coach technique. I don't know if he could abide that."

Obama's response:

"I think that I'm a better offensive line coach than my offensive line coach. I know more about defense for any particular formation than my linebackers coach. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better quarterback coach than my quarterback coach. (And a better quarterback, for that matter.)"

I cannot believe nobody has mentioned the height thing. Obama is a tall, lanky guy. He tends to loom over most of his interlocutors. He totally did it to McCain, and even to Hillary and Gov. Brewer of Arizona.

But Romney is about the same height, maybe even a hair taller, and has a much more solid build. He's not going to be loomed over or otherwise intimidated. This throws Obama off his game - it denies him one of his critical tools.

Also, I'm not a Private Equity guy, but I do work with them from time to time. The top guys, like Romney was, are very very good at thinking on their feet and at winning over a room, not bey charm, but by sheer force of presence and fluid command of all of the relevant information. McCain and Hillary are, for all intents and purposes, long-time government hacks. They've never had to really bring it in the private sector.

"She [Hillary] is not the monster she is made out to be on these boards."

No, she isn't, and neither is Obama, but both are so completely confused about economics and the role government can effectively play in society that the effect is the same. I don't really care if the destroyer of our nation's vitality is a monster or a fool. Neither should be given the remote control.

Althouse was never gaga over Obama. It is simply ridiculous to say so.

As Blue says, you people need to get over yourselves. McCain was a terrible candidate. Terrible. I myself only voted for him out a sense of loyalty. Anyone who was not convinced by him and was tired after eight years of Bush was entirely justified.

"It's BS that Brooks, Noonan and Althouse were gaga about making a historical vote for our first black prez?"

I see it as a little more than that. There was the desire to be affirmative, but I think even more powerful was the desire to not be seen as against such a "historic moment." That makes you one of the bad guys, and subconsciously that's an overpowering fear for some, especially those extensively educated, and it's irresistible if they are also even slightly public figures.

You guys dumping on Althouse need to go back and read what she said. She said McCain lost her, because he tried to cancel a scheduled debate to run off to Washington to -- somehow -- resolve a private-sector financial crisis.

" Anyone who was not convinced by him and was tired after eight years of Bush was entirely justified."

That would never justify hiring a complete unknown. It's just irresponsible. As bad as Obama has been, he could have been much worse, and if he was, nobody who voted for him would have any excuse for the disaster they caused. They voted for a name in the phone book.

Perhaps, but it's really stupid to pick a President based on that. How many dumb moves has Obama made, before and since. They were simply ignored. That was an excuse she made, not a reason, and by saying that, I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Bag -- The Democrats were going to win the 2008 presidential election. It was basically forgone.

I stand by my contention that Obama is Carter, all the way down to the unknown aspects.

I also apparently have more faith in the country than you and a lot of people. We've got a good, strong setup here. We can survive bad leadership in one compartment of one large part of the government for much longer than four years.

I agree. It's fair to criticize or argue with Althouse over her vote. But one reason it shocked some of us is that she wasn't an obvious Obama partisan leading up to it. She did criticize the Obama campaign and defended e.g. Sarah Palin from the worst abuse. And her rationale for voting for Obama was qualified, significantly framed in terms of "how McCain lost me."

Ricpic does have a point, because Althouse was doubtless influenced (as I mentioned) by the "First Black President" factor. But Althouse was honest and upfront about that, she was frank about her feelings about that, and I give her credit for that frankness. Many other Obama voters weren't so honest and open about their feelings and thoughts on that score or to what extent that factor played a role in their vote.

You do realize they are all lawyers, don't you. It's like saying your termite collection is secure in the strong wooden box you made for them. The termites themselves designed it.

Seriously though, I do have great faith in the American people as a whole, and I also thought Mccain was a terrible candidate.

But just think about how little we knew of Obama, and how hard it would be to stop him if he turned out to be a complete nut. It would be Battle Royal between the Constitution and the Race card. There would be blood.

I also apparently have more faith in the country than you and a lot of people. We've got a good, strong setup here.

I've always felt that, and I have residual faith. More than residual.

But the thing is, at stake in this election, to just mention one thing, is Obamacare. Obama promised to be unprecedented, and that's effing unprecedented. There's virtually no coming back from Obamacare, if Obama's re-elected. We're in for UK style healthcare, at best (and likely worse).

I wish I could feel chipper about the USA (as I know it) remaining pretty much the USA, no matter who's elected. But I can't feel so chipper.

Not to plug the movie "2016" again but you do all need to see it if you have not already.

D'Souza's theory on Obama is that he is a really smart guy who realized that being a non-threatening African American (one who smiles all the time) can play on white guilt.

And to the discussion in this thread, if Obama would trend toward anger, intimidation, loud voice, etc, a large number of white voters would immediately identify him as one of those "threatening" black politicians and he'd lose his main jedi mind trick that he's used his whole life to get places.

I don't think he's gonna find his baby bear posture in time. Last time too "nice." Next time will probably be too "not nice." It will be fun watching him try to walk that tightrope. At this juncture it is moving toward a desperate Hail Mary maneuver or it is all over. Mitt is up with independents by 15-20 points. This is looking to be a blowout of Reaganesque proportions.

By the way, this is the trouble with Althouse's thesis and/or with the press coterie attempt to call a normal Obama outing terrible, terrible, terrible...

Maybe Obama will be feistier, or angrier, or whatever. Maybe Romney will be more reserved, or conservative, or whatever. But how much? Obama's not going to change that much, nor is Romney. Barring some meltdown by either (unlikely), we are likely see the same basic thing repeated twice more in different venues.

People are going to see what they see, and the influence of the press to call another average Obama performance heroic is limited. The myth has crashed. All the king's horses and all the king's men can't keep Obama from losing the election now.

Hillary did not believe that Obama deserved the opportunity. She realized that fighting him had become an almost certain losing proposition, and long-term she was more likely better off not going all in against him.

You notice how this obama crowd wallows in fail after they screw up. This is so much like the "You didn't build that flap" this summer where they spent the next 2 weeks afterwards trying to convince us it was "taken out of contents" when they just should have shut the f*ck up and moved on. This is like that. I am enjoying their discomfort but I am beginning to feel sorry for them and want to move on.

The press has written Romney's obituary. Why are you people not reading it? Are you incredibly lazy? The election is over. It has been decided by the Press. Why are you not understanding? Do you have a brain?

The press has written Romney's obituary. Why are you people not reading it? Are you incredibly lazy? The election is over. It has been decided by the Press. Why are you not understanding? Do you have a brain?

Most interesting, 9% of Obama '08 voters are voting for Romney; only 2% of McCain '08 voters are voting for Obama, for a net gain of 7% flipping from Obama to Romney. That's somewhat impressive, as it shows a not insignificant cohort of voters can learn from critical errors.

Hopefully the moderator will have some abortion questions so Ryan can point out to Joe Biden that they have similar voting records on tax payer funding, Roe v. Wade and partial birth abortion, and can both agree Obama voting against the Born Alive act was extreme.

Because I'm just human and I'm tempted and Christ set some almost impossible standards for us. The Bible says, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Christ said, I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery. I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times.... This is something that God recognizes, that I will do and have done, and God forgives me for it. But that doesn't mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don't consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who's loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness.

This is a key point. I honestly think this is a good reason for anyone-- Republican, Democrat, independent (including Ron Paul or Gary Johnson libertarians) to vote for Romney.

Obama, in power, gets away with anything and everything. The NYT purports to be America's preeminent, most authoritative newspaper, so let's judge the matter by that metric: let's look at the fourth estate's (represented paradigmatically by the NYT) scrutiny of, inquiry into, and reporting on Obama's presidency. (But same goes, to a slightly lesser extent, for Reuters and AP and Washington Post and all the networks and cable channels, except for FOX).

Seriously. Even if I distrusted Romnney, I would at least have the certainty that the press would be a goddamn bloodthirsty Rottweiler watchdog on his ass, at every moment and every move of his presidency.

What we have now is a press acting as the POTUS's goddamn press agents.

I think everybody is whistling past the graveyard about the "resiliency" of America. Has no one noticed the run-amuck EPA and the number of Obama appointees rapidly being converted into civil service slots who will be there doing damage for decades? Same for DOJ and other depts. (They've even been devious enough to use outside civilian servers/computers/programs to penetrate government computers in the various agencies and erase documentation/e-mails, etc. so not only is their no paper/electronic trail of decision-making, there is ALSO no electronic trail of the erasure process..) The enabling legislation of Obamacare wuill be almost impossible to repeal unless the GOP has both the Presidency and overwhelming supermajorities in both houses the way the legislation is written. And what of the judical appointments being made at all levels? Not to mention the SCOTUS appointments should Obama be relected that could provide an un-alterable tipping point in leftward trends.

And don't forget the actual physical damage, i.e., jobs and industries lost by bureaucratic strangulation never to come back; the destruction of our energy base by closing perfectly good powerplantswhich will never re-open due to fact they are designed to be run 24/7 and onc3e shut down begin to deteroriate IMEEDIATELY. Same for coal mines which are practically a living, organic being and once shut down begin to deteroriate due to temp, humidity and water levels so as to be almost un-reconstructable for safe use within months due to zero maintenance. Or the deterioration of our nuclear weapons to the extent we can't count on their reliability and the retirement/death of most of those with the expertise/knowledge to maintain/repair them--not to mention allowing the facilities needed to produce new components go away also. The same can also be said about decisions to build/retire naval ships where lead times are in decades. Once these things are gone or foregone the likelyhood, once these things I have listed (and many others too numerous to mention as drunk as I am tonight)have come to pass that they can be reversed in any meaningfukl time-frame is almost nil to prevent all sorts of dysfunctional outcomes from electric brown-outs/blackouts to sky-rocketing electricity costs (shale gas notwithstanding) to lost wars is almost nil The damage adone is already verging on the catastrophic. I am not sanguine about the future even if Obama is defeated. If one takes a serious across-the-board inventory of regulatory actions already vtaken which will be fought out in the courts for years to reverse--if at all--one cannot be sanguine about the future. Much irreversable damage (in any meaningful time-frame)has already done..

Blue@9 said...I don't recall Althouse being all gaga over him. And I don't know why people still bust on her about the vote.

McCain was a totally spent force and was flailing at that point.

Heck, a tuna sandwich could have beaten McCain at that point. He was ineffective AND he had to deal with massive Bush fatigue at the time================While the country was fed up with Bush's endless wars and serious bungling on the economy because he was too busy playing American Churchill....no Republican would have won.And running a fire-breathing pure litmus test firebrand would have given Obama even more Congressional speeches and 4 years of carte blanche...as LBJ had after the Goldwater debacle.

So McCain was "it". But he had big problems besides being an incoherent campaigner who feared slamming the Black Messiah as unfit on lack of executive experience.

1. After he was burned on the Keating 5, McCain made it a point to tell everyone he was clueless on economic and financial matters and had no interest in them.2. McCain's long tradition of backstabbing Republicans if it pleased the NY TImes and 3 Networks to do so or give the Dems a fig leaf cover on stuff like Mass Amnesty made him untrustworthy in the eyes of many.3. Worst of all, McCain was a war thirsty neocon who wanted 5 more wars and endless attrition of US lives, when the public was angry and sick to death of Bush's nation-building.

For those unaware of the sheer hypocritical disingenuous mendacious disgusting gall of the Obama campaign as displayed in the Big Bird ad (especially re Corzine), here it is, as quoted by Hagar in a previous thread:

Obama: I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message:

Narrator: Bernie Madoff. Ken Lay. Dennis Kozlowski. Criminals. Gluttons of greed. And the evil genius who towered over them? One man has the guts to speak his name.

Pretty much like an Obama voter right now trying to justify their abject irresponsibly in 2008.

Like I said up thread, we are very lucky he is only incompetent, because there was nothing, absolutely nothing to inform that he was capable of handling this job, and wasn't a complete loose cannon. It's pure luck that we are only in the middle of the worst recovery in our lives, and have wasted all the foreign policy ground won in the previous 8 years, while ruining the most productive, advanced healthcare system in the world and burying ourselves in debt. Yes, even all that is lucky compared to what was possible with electing a complete unknown quantity.

Imagine, being on the board of a large important corporation and hiring a new CEO with no experience who never even ran an ice cream stand. Then after the company has the worst 4 years in anybody's memory, he offers nothing but blaming the previous CEO, while you explain to the stockholders how he was much better than the well known although controversial military officer with extensive experience in your company's business.

Bag -- Your beef isn't with Althouse. You need to focus your anger properly, where it belongs, which is at the goofy leftist idealists who foisted Obama upon the ballot.

The 2008 election was going to be a coronation of the Democratic candidate. That was always going to be true.

And another thing: Republicans deserved such a fate. Stagnation, fatigue, corrosion, and corruption had set in. The Tea Party, whatever its virtues and flaws, did not arise because people were happy with the Republican status quo. Think about that.

And think also about how long you think it's reasonably necessary for people to keep bitching at one loveable law professor for her vote four years ago. What's the statute of limitations on that?

Seven, I'm not bitching at Althouse, anymore than any of the others who voted similarly. My last comment was specifically in response to C4's continued density.

All that stuff you state in no way excuses voting for someone with no experience who you know little about for the most important job in the world, including commanding the most powerful military in history. Just think about THAT for a second. I frankly don't care about Althouse's vote. The fact that she just recently decided indicates a lack of seriousness and a trivial focus. The only excuse for such a late decision is if she just recently started reading about these two men who have long-known resumes and histories of actual actions, decisions and outcomes. Otherwise, she is just waiting for some trivial one-time event to "lose her". It's not what the rest of us should emulate.

I'm criticizing the methodology, including assigning the worst possible scenarios to one candidate despite his history, and simultaneously giving an unknown mysterious unproven abilities. I'm trying to convince people to be rational, careful, informed, and serious this time. It's not the prom queen we're electing. Whether or not a Dem win was inevitable last time is irrelevant about how one should vote then or now.

I'm in California, so my vote does not make any difference whatsoever. We Californians (demonstrably the dumbest voters in the country) will automatically give Obama 1/5 of all the electoral votes he needs. I will still vote, and I will still vote against him, on the principle that it's a duty, and one that should be taken seriously, as it affects (often existentially) the lives of billions of people around the world. What bothers me even more than the fact that we gave the world someone like Obama in this job, is the rationale we used to do it. It is an embarrassment. The last four years have left Obama no longer a mystery, and have now given me a lot of new reasons to vote against him. The last time, the lack of any serious reasons for hiring him in the first place was enough.

bagoh12- "All that stuff you state in no way excuses voting for someone with no experience who you know little about for the most important job in the world, including commanding the most powerful military in history."

----------------On the contrary, history shows some of the worst Commander in Chiefs in various nations have been those with from a smattering of combat experience in a narrow niche -to being a highly decorated corporal in WWI - fancying themselves great strategists and seeing glory in promoting and winning the Next War.

Leaving discussions of hero Vets Hitler, LBJ, DeGaulle and many others aside - McCain was a pure warhawk. He WANTED new glorious wars and just behind that, troops to do "limited interventions".

When he ran in 2008 his "wish list" was:

1. Sending troops to help the heroic Georgians who were getting their asses handed to them by Russians, after stupidly launching a big artillery attack on Russia's ally, South Ossetia.2. A big war with Iran.3. NO drawdown in Iraq until it was a "fully fuctioning democracy".4. A big Surge into Afghanistan to help the Heroes there achieve the peace stability that the US military gave Iraq.5. Troops to the Sudan.6. Troops to Somalia.7. Troops to Yemen.8. Troops to the Congo.

Unlike some others here-- and yet like others here-- I don't consider you this totally foreign other.

Not too long ago, I think I was in many ways like you (politically). And even now, I'd say probably all of my best friends in real life, 100% of them (excluding family members) have a political perspective at least as leftwing as yours (and in most cases more: in my world, the world in which I have to live, almost every respectable academic is a Marxist in some sense).

This is an aspect of my life that contributes to my psychological... unhappiness or whatever, but that's on me to deal with.

This is obviously not an argument or refutation against any particular argument you might come up with on current events. But at least I hope you realize not everyone who disagrees with you fits your stereotype of the hillbilly/ winger "other."

Heh, given the milieu in which I live and work, I'm probably far, far more steeped in Marxism than anyone here commenting on the Althouse blog. With the possible exception of Robert Cook.

C4, If you think McCain would have done all those things, and you thought them stupid, then I guess you made the right choice, but did you really believe that, or are trying to cover that you just hate heros, and anyone who gets called one, by those stupid rubes? No problem there with Obama. He didn't push that button did he? BTW, did you ever get your Obamaphone?

Like I said, assign the worst possible to one candidate and the best to the blank page and guess what you get: a perfectly reasonable decision...based on bullshit.

the world in which I have to live, almost every respectable academic is a Marxist in some sense).

This is an aspect of my life that contributes to my psychological... unhappiness or whatever, but that's on me to deal with.

I left that world for good recently and have never been happier. The majority of them, academics are 99%er feeding on the genius of 1% and that bugs them into so much insecurity that they have to lie to themselves that they are great and they deserve what they think they have. They live in a bubble of their own making, hyped up by their own insecurities and self-aggrandizement. Outside of that bubble nobody gives a hoot what they are, who they are. But they are in someways dangerous to civil societies. As Obama campaign showed these are easy prey to prey on because they are so stupid and gullible outside of that bubble.

Preying on academics and students was the key to Obama's 2008 success. I think it all started with Samantha Power's Sudan movement and they found a key to rev up the gullible and easily flattered.

Jane Horton began crying on the other end of the phone when she learned that Mitt Romney had been using the story of her husband, Chris Horton, who was killed in Afghanistan, as a part of his stump speech.

“Wow,” the 26-year-old said. “I had no idea.

“To be honest, I’ve been through a lot and I’m not a super emotional person but it brings me to tears,” Horton said in an interview with ABC News, after being informed of her husband’s newfound spot on the national stage. “Not that he’s telling my story, but that he’s telling my husband’s story, it means the world to me.

“One of the last things my husband said to me before he was killed, when I would ask him, ‘Chris, what do you need over there? What can I send you?’ he said, ‘I need a new president,’” Horton recalled.

More reality for fat garagie:

The mother of one of the State Department officials killed in the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi is blasting President Barack Obama and top administration officials for not telling her more information about her son’s death.

“Don’t give me any baloney that comes through with this political stuff,” Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, said on CNN on Wednesday. “I still don’t know. In fact, today I just heard something more, that he died of smoke inhalation.”

Seven Machos said...Cedarford doesn't like Jewish people. His whole worldview is centered on that====================Fine if Machos wishes to transcend being a champion ball-washer of the Zionists and claim your stance on any issue shows how much you love the Jews or are anti-Semitic...

But aside from McCain's thirst for a major war with Iran?

What did McCains championing of great new wars for "The Heroes" have to do with the Jews?Sudan?Fighting Russians in Georgia"The fucking Congo??Libya?Yemen?SOmalia?

Zero views Congress, like the Constitution, as just a bump in the road that must be navigated around. He has things to do and won't let them get in the way. You'll see this even more clearly if [God forbid] he wins.

Matthew Sablan, I have common cause with gun-controlling leftists in viewing the Constitutional text on Congress declaring war as anachronistic. Obama ordered the OBL slaughter, and rightly so. We were not at war with Pakistan at the time.

I loved the debate style, how the two actually had a back and forth with each other with little input from the moderator. That will NOT be allowed to happen again.

The next debate is a stupid townhall with probably lots of unserious questions. For instance, Pizza Hut has offered free pizza for life to whom ever has the nerve to ask the candidate what their favorite pizza topping is.

"Maybe Obama will be feistier, or angrier, or whatever. Maybe Romney will be more reserved, or conservative, or whatever. But how much? Obama's not going to change that much, nor is Romney. Barring some meltdown by either (unlikely), we are likely see the same basic thing repeated twice more in different venues. "

Oh, I don't know about that. Three or four different Al Gores showed up to the 2000 debates, wardrobe makeovers and all.

The question isn't whether Obama can change his demeanor and style, but whether he can do it without overdoing it. Gore bounced between hyper-alpha-dog and Ms. Congeniality, but he never managed to find the sweet spot.